One Gorilla: A Counting Book
A teacher’s look at why this book belongs in the Page Grabbers stage.
Why it fits Page Grabbers (for young toddlers who treat books as things to do)
Gorgeously painted primates to count from one to ten. Counting is just naming numbers, and this makes every number a face. The final page - 'all of us are family' - lands beautifully.
What makes it special
Browne paints primates the way portraitists paint royalty: every macaque and mandrill an individual with an inner life. The counting is almost incidental to the faces, which hold eye contact from the page. Its closing turn — 'all primates, all one family' — lands empathy at an age when it takes root deepest.
About Anthony Browne
Anthony Browne was UK Children's Laureate from 2009 to 2011, has won the Kate Greenaway Medal twice, and in 2000 became the first British illustrator to receive the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. He is best known for Gorilla and Voices in the Park, and for the Shape Game, in which one person draws a shape and someone else turns it into a picture.
Before he made children's books, Browne spent three years as a medical artist at Manchester Royal Infirmary painting watercolours of operations - work he says taught him more about drawing than art college did, and taught him how to tell stories in pictures.
Also by this author: Gorilla · Voices in the Park · Willy the Wimp
More from “Point and Name”
This book is part of The Best Books for Toddlers: 30 Teacher Picks (Page Grabbers) in our guide The Best Children’s Books by Age — 120 books chosen by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX. Come see how we build readers →
Nobody paid for this review — not the author, not the publisher — and the store link above earns us nothing. Our only interest is the reader this book fits.